WE WENT TO THE THIRD BIGGEST UNDERGROUND DUNGEON IN THE WORLD
It was one day after the World Spirit Summit had ended and peace had returned to our lives.
I was out shopping with Flatorte. Along the way, we killed every slime that appeared and put the magic stones safely in our pockets. This was another important daily job for us.
Flatorte was being lazy, using her tail to smash the slimes.
Wait, she was technically moving a part of her body, so was she really being lazy? Or was that more like a kick or a punch for her?
“My tail just moves on its own whenever a slime gets near, so this is a cinch.”
“You are being lazy!”
“It’s not a problem, is it, Mistress? There’s no rule that says I have to go mano a mano with the slimes, and it’s better to beat them than just let them go.”
“That’s true… Well, I guess you’re not my apprentice, and it’s not like I’m teaching you how to fight anyway. You’re right.”
Laika would probably complain if she saw this, but my philosophy was to carry on without too much effort, and by that standard, there was no problem here.
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. You know, Nanterre is so peaceful,” Flatorte said as she opened her mouth wide.
I mean, that was a big yawn. Absolutely shameless. It was times like these that Flatorte seemed too careless, but you could also argue that Laika was too uptight.
“The monsters in Nanterre aren’t strong at all, either. And it’s not just this area; they’re quiet all over the whole province.”
By the way, it wasn’t as though demons like Pecora and Beelzebub were managing all the monsters. Demons and monsters were the same in a broad sense, but monkeys didn’t live in human society. Monsters like the slimes native to these rural provinces were like wild monkeys to the demons.
And so in this era of peace between humans and demons, there were plenty of spots where monsters naturally appeared, and they brought with them adventurers who made their living defeating those monsters. Without that reality, there wouldn’t be any guild to buy the magic stones from us, so we could never forget what the monsters had done for us.
“Mm, we have sooo much free time. And that makes me want to cut loose,” Flatorte said with a bright and clear voice that had a nice ring out here in the highlands.
“What do you mean exactly by ‘cut loose’?”
“You know, like punching out monsters or slamming them into the ground, things like that. I’ve been so well-mannered since coming here that I’m getting rusty.”
Wait, who was the one who got buck naked alone in a forest? I thought, but maybe everything that wasn’t “cutting loose” was “well-mannered” in Flatorte’s eyes.
I actually wasn’t that surprised. When we went to the blue dragon village, I felt there were quite a few who thought like small-time—no, big-time thugs.
“I’d want more festivals, but there aren’t many around here.”
It was true—Flatta had only the Dance Festival. There were other, more religious events, but those weren’t the kind at which we could run around and be loud. I guess that’s the difference between a festival and a ritual.
As we talked, Flatorte’s tail killed another slime.
“Man, if only there was a place where I was free to break whatever I wanted! I wanna go crazy!”
There was a very wide gap between her girlish appearance and her aggressive topics of conversation.
But stress relief is essential to your health. I had to think of some outlets for her. Maybe I should enter her in a fighting tournament? Fighsly would definitely know plenty about that—maybe I should ask her next time.
As I quietly assigned myself some homework, we entered the Flatta guild.
We handed over a sack stuffed with magic stones to Natalie at the counter.
“Thank you as always, great Witch of the Highlands. I’ll go ahead and count these, so please sit tight.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
While she was totaling the stones, Flatorte read the requests on the message board. It was the perfect way to pass the time.
But to be blunt, the requests weren’t very promising. The majority of them were basically odd jobs. Things like Our drain is clogged, so please come clean it or The roof leaks when it rains, so can someone please fix it, and so on and so forth.
After all, the province of Nanterre was a peaceful one with weak monsters, so the emergency task of monster extermination didn’t exist.
As a result, none of the requests really grabbed us. No matter how crazy Flatorte went, cleaning drains wouldn’t relieve her stress.
“Oh! This is great!” Flatorte yelled. I mean, her voice was always loud, but this was louder than normal for her.
“What is it? Did you find something so interesting you just had to shout?”
“Look, Mistress, look!”
I glanced over the paper that Flatorte pointed to.
That’s too many exclamation points.
“They sure are telling us a lot…”
Especially the part about how it was “said to be the third largest underground dungeon in the world”—that was something you said when you were sort of a big deal, but you were comparing yourself to other, more impressive entities.
I sensed something shady about this whole thing, but Flatorte didn’t.
“Mistress, we should go to the dungeon!”
It was a strong assertion, almost like a high school girl asking to go to a theme park.
“What? But doesn’t it sound fishy to you?”
“It looks like it goes very deep underground, and I’m sure it would be a great way to test my strength! My blood is boiling!” Judging by the mood of the blue dragon village, boiling blood was probably right on the money.
“Oh! Are you interested?”
And of course, Natalie had to start talking about it to us. Guilds were in the service industry, too.
“Do you know a lot about this, Miss Natalie? About the Bugabee Underground Ruins, I mean.”
“No, not at all. Oh dear, I started talking to you as I was counting and forgot what number I was on!”
What a mess!
Afterward, Natalie pulled out some documents, and according to them—
The Bugabee Underground Ruins were in a land far, far away from here.
Well, that much was a given. The problem came after that.
“It apparently used to be a mine. I heard it was very rich in silver a long time ago, but then all the veins got depleted.”
“I see. And so now that mine’s a dungeon. But they’re underground ruins, right? I guess you could call an abandoned mine ‘ruins,’ but that doesn’t feel like the right nuance.”
“They apparently wanted to turn it into a theme park for children, but it was so out of the way that they received no guests, and it closed down.”
So it was like a failed attempt to revitalize a countryside town…
And when she said “theme park,” she didn’t mean it in the sense of That One Theme Park that claimed to be in Tokyo but was actually in Chiba; she meant it in the sense of a smaller, cozier kind.
“However, then a new mayor assumed office, a real go-getter, and started working to label the theme park ruins as ‘underground ruins’ and turn it into a tourist attraction.”
“He’s thinking in reverse!”
“So when they did construction, they apparently found that there were actual ruins very deep under the ground. They seem to be inviting adventurers to come and conquer the ruins for them.”
A truth born from a lie. This sure was complicated.
“I hear if they can get lots of adventurers together for an event, they’ll drop a ton of money in town, and the townsfolk will somehow make do from that.”
That sure was an aggressive approach for a fantasy realm, but the people of this world all seemed to have a way of thinking similar to that of modern humans, so I wasn’t surprised to hear someone like that was around.
“We must go, Mistress! Then we will beat up all the other adventurers!”
“Why do you want to fight the other adventurers?!”
A dungeon was not where you wanted to stage a death match.
Natalie was reading over the rest of the documents. There was more information than I thought.
“Well, well! It says, The guild the adventurers with the highest marks registered with will also receive a splendid reward! And you might celebrate the birth of a new local hero—it’s two birds with one stone!”
Natalie was staring hard at me.
Oh no. She was urging me to enter.
“Sure, we might get some good results if I entered, but that might be against the rules…and I dunno how I feel about being put to work to make a lot of money for the guild…”
“We would receive a substantial amount of wheat of the highest quality! Please!”
If that was all, then maybe it was okay…
That being said, I would stick out like a sore thumb if I did do it… The name of the Witch of the Highlands was already getting around, but I wanted to do this on the down low.
“I understand how you feel, Mistress. I, Flatorte, have an idea!”
It didn’t sound like saying no was an option at this point. I just had to hope that Flatorte’s plan would work.
I had my doubts about some parts of her idea, but it was an easy one, so I would just give it a try.
There were horns on my head.
They were on it, by the way, not growing from it. It was similar to the horned headband I wore when I once pretended to be a demon.
“They suit you so well, Mistress! You look like a dragon, even when I squint at you!”
So Flatorte said, but I would take it with a grain of salt. She had suggested a very simple strategy: If I disguised myself with horns, then no one would know I was the Witch of the Highlands.
I still had my doubts about whether this would work. Or maybe it would…? I decided to show my homemade horn headband to my family and check their reactions.
I first showed my horns to Laika.
“What do you think, Laika? How do I look?”
She sat frozen in place for a moment, like she’d been petrified.
“Hmm? Don’t tell me you don’t care? I’d like to hear what you think, if you can let me know.”
“I-it’s…cute… It’s so, so cute!” Laika yelled, her face flushed red. She put her hands on her own cheeks. “I am too embarrassed to calm down, so I will try again!”
And she ran back to her room!
This strange effect is concerning in its own way!
“Aww, Laika got all flustered from how cute the horns are. When I was younger, I too would’ve been too shy to look you in the eye.”
“Hey! What do these horns mean to dragons?! Do they really drive you that crazy?!”
This isn’t making me feel any better!
I decided to show them to Halkara next. I went to her room.
“What do you think, Halkara? How do I look?”
“Madam Teacher… Are you into dressing up like that?”
“No. Don’t you have any other thoughts? Like, Wow, you look just like a dragon! or anything?”
“I could use shavings from those horns in medicine.”
And now she was talking like a pharmacist; she wasn’t much help.
Rosalie and my daughters said they were cute, by the way, but I wasn’t wearing them for the cuteness points… But now that I thought about it, I guess there wasn’t much point in showing this to my family, since they knew who I was…
Well, I’d just think positive—people shouldn’t know I was the Witch of the Highlands anyway.
Now that my disguise was complete, it was time to pick my party members.
We had to register as a four-person party to go through the Bugabee Underground Ruins.
The reason was logical: The chances of survival for adventurers increased dramatically with more people. It would be dreadful if one person went on their own and got severely injured.
That’s true for daily life, too. If you live alone and suddenly collapse at home, it’s hard to call for any help. But with family, you can call an ambulance. Not that this world had ambulances, but you get the point.
It wouldn’t be a campaign if the organizers ended up with a ton of dead people on their hands; plus, it would be hard to hold the event the following year. They would be thorough when it came to safety measures.
“All right, Flatorte and I are for sure going, so who should we pick for the last two?”
As I sat at the dining table and stared at the entry sheet, Laika came up behind me.
“Lady Azusa, I will join, too!” Laika straight-up volunteered.
“Thanks! You’re pretty strong, so it’s probably not going to be dangerous for you, so I’ll put you down.”
And now, just one person left. I couldn’t take my daughters along, Halkara might actually die, and Rosalie the ghost probably couldn’t register according to the rules.
I looked up and saw Beelzebub sitting across from me, excitement written all over her face.
I’m here, am I not? Pick me, pick me! I could almost hear her voice…
When did she come around anyway…? This is my house. But I wasn’t too surprised anymore whenever she let herself in.
“You’re a demon. Can demons go into dungeons and kill the monsters there?”
“Do you mean to say that it goes against nature when a large fish eats a smaller fish or when a large bird eats a smaller bird? Is it all cannibalism? Then you may not eat beef or pork or lamb for the rest of your life.”
Oh, that’s right. Monsters and demons were essentially different.
“But we would be cheating if our party came with a high-ranking demon…”
“Speak for yourself. Who was it who defeated me in battle?” she said, staring at me coolly.
That’s right, too… I broke the rules the moment I joined…
“And in fact, should there be any exceedingly strange or harmful monsters, I should be able to provide help as a demon.”
Beelzebub’s expression grew a touch more serious.
“There might also be a spontaneously occurring monster with high enough intelligence to be considered a demon, or perhaps the revival of a demon that was once sealed in the human lands long ago. This dungeon has yet to be thoroughly investigated, so I decided to confirm for myself.”
“So you have honest reasons.”
“Beelzebub coming with us gives us the strength of a hundred,” Laika added. It might even be the strength of a thousand.
“Leave it to me. I shall walk through the entirety of the dungeon and leave no stone unturned.”
But what about poor Bugabee with no natural resources to call people in afterward…?
“Then I’ll put you down as the fourth person, okay?” I put Beelzebub’s name down in the name column.
But my name spot was still empty. I hadn’t thought of an alias for when I was in disguise. And I still hadn’t filled out the occupation column.
What were Laika’s and Flatorte’s jobs? Warriors, maybe?
“I’d want a cute name~ But I don’t know what dragon names sound like~”
“Oh sheesh, just write whatever you want! I’ll write it for you!”
Beelzebub flipped the paper around.
She wrote Azuzard in my name spot.
“Hey! That sounds way too strong! That sounds like the name of some final boss!”
“You are like the boss of this world, so I think it’s perfect! And the job doesn’t matter!”
And so, our entry sheet ended up something like:
“Wait, this doesn’t look right…”
It didn’t make a great impression when two of our four were listed as “unemployed.” They might not have regular jobs, but that sure was a rude way of putting it…!
“I suppose I am unemployed… Though I would be happy if you wrote down domestic help or something…”
See? Even Laika’s shocked!
“And are you sure you don’t have to hide who you are, Beelzebub?”
“I am proud of who I am, so there is no need to hide anything.”
I already had a feeling this whole dungeon exploration would be a disaster.
“Oh yes, and there was something I wished to ask you.” Beelzebub looked at me curiously. “Why are you wearing those horns? Have you found yourself a new hobby?”
Oh no. I was still wearing them.
“No! You have the wrong idea!”
“Well, if you’re looking for horn transplant surgery, I know a very skilled shady doctor—I can introduce you to him.”
“Nooo, no thank you! This is just a disguise; I don’t want that at all!”
“Oh, a shady doctor is a doctor specializing in the shade arts handed down through the demon race, so there is no need to worry. He has a legal medical license.”
“This is too complicated!”
And by the way, Flatorte came in afterward, but she didn’t seem to think anything of being labeled “unemployed.”
“Well, the majority of the blue dragons are unemployed, after all. I suppose you could even say that being blue dragons is our job.”
The blue dragons didn’t seem to have the concept of “steady jobs.” Maybe you guys should pay a little more mind to your reputation?
We had way too many problems, but at least our party had been put together.
I was always super-thankful that there were dragons in our family whenever we traveled long distances. Laika did the flying this time.
The village of Bugabee was inland, far away from all major highways—it checked all the boxes for a settlement doomed to waste away, but there were plenty of large-scale buildings. That probably meant it once thrived on the mines.
There was an excessive number of taverns, so I could see how the people who worked in the mines would have spent their off hours. Long ago, the village was probably big enough to be called a town.
And this tiny village was teeming with loud adventurers—practically buried in them.
There was a banner that said WELCOME, ADVENTURERS! fluttering in the sky.
They seemed to be desperately resting their whole revival on the dungeon.
We headed for the guild, which was acting as the reception. The sign said BUGABEE GUILD & TOURIST INFORMATION CENTER. When we stepped inside, the staff lady looked at us with bright, glittering eyes. It felt like she was expecting too much…
“Hello, this is our party list for going into the underground ruin…” I was a little nervous as I handed over our list. Any record we might set in the dungeon would be invalid if we didn’t hand in the list.
“Thank you! I have received your list!”
Great, now we were qualified to enter.
“And here are coupons you may use while shopping in town!”
“Oh, thanks.”
“And here is your sightseeing map! There is a fortress built five hundred years ago in a valley a little ways away from here, so I would recommend that one! There’s also a beautiful two-tiered waterfall in the area! Also, buckwheat-flour galettes are a popular treat making the rounds right now, so when you see this mark on certain shops, you’ll be able to try their specialty galettes!”
Wait a sec. She’s not explaining the dungeon; she’s giving us tourist info!
“Oh, and have you settled on an inn yet? We have a list here. If you display your coupon to them, you’ll receive a discount of eight hundred gold per person! And local dishes made with the village’s vegetables will be included free—”
“Wait, wait! You know we’re adventurers and not tourists, right?!”
Our own intentions and the village’s expectations weren’t adding up, were they?!
“Oh, of course…I know that…” The receptionist lady gave a slightly discouraged sigh. “But Bugabee’s population has been steadily going down… We don’t have any industry to begin with, so people aren’t able to make their living anymore. I thought if we at least put some effort into encouraging sightseeing, then we might get a bit of life back…”
That sure painted a vivid picture.
“Well, if we clear these underground ruins quickly, then we may do some sightseeing in our free time. This counts as work for me this time around, so I don’t have to use any of my vacation time.”
Beelzebub sounded like she was ready to do some sightseeing as part of her business trip.
“I can dally as long as I wish because I, Flatorte, am unemployed!”
“Why do you sound so proud of the fact that you’re unemployed?” Laika seemed slightly ashamed when it came to that.
“Being jobless means endless possibilities. It’s like being colorless—we can be any color we want!”
Flatorte seemed to think her jobless/colorless comparison was very clever.
I heard so much news in my past life of people committing suicide from overworking or from failing to get a job, so maybe it was a relief to see her questioning why people had a problem with her unemployment.
Being alive was the most important thing.
“Oh, your party’s job descriptions sure are, um…unique…”
I think the receptionist noticed.
“Among all the warriors and mages and monks, this sure is unconventional…”
“We’ll be fine. We’ll manage. Also, it’s not unconventional, it’s unemployed.”
Wait, Flatorte, she’s worried about you because you’re trying to go into a dungeon without a job!
I never minded all that much, but now I saw how much of an idiot Flatorte was… Maybe I should educate her…
“Also, this ‘minister’ thing must be a joke, right…?”
“It is nothing of the sort. It would be a liability issue if I lied on this form.”
Sure, if the minister of agriculture wrote “multimedia creator lol” on her résumé, she would probably be fired. She should write down the truth at times like this.
“V-very well, then… I’ll go ahead and provide you with a map that covers everything until the twentieth floor, so feel free to use that. Poisonous monsters do appear, so please be careful.”
“By the way, what’s the record for the lowest floor so far?” Laika asked. Our diligent dragon was like the party’s conscience.
“The thirty-third floor. It goes rather deep underground, since it was originally a mine, so the higher floors are mostly just for getting down there. I believe the real fighting will start at around the eighth floor. Please bring back some sort of proof from floors thirty-four and below to show that you’ve been there.”
“Understood. There’s also one more thing I want to check,” Laika said, glancing over at Flatorte. “Would you please tell us if there’s anything we are not allowed to destroy within the dungeon?”
Right, she was taking precautions for when Flatorte started “cutting loose”…
“Um… Please refrain from destroying the underground guide maps and trail markers…”
“Does that mean I can break everything else?” Flatorte asked, and the receptionist finally seemed to recognize the storm that had come.
She went pale. “…Holes and damages to the walls as a result of battle are inevitable, so that’s not a problem.”
“All riiight! Traces of the great Flatorte’s exploits will be etched into the dungeon!”
“Um, but please do come back up if it gets too dangerous. Please retreat before you start to feel that your life is in imminent danger. Our image will be harmed if there are too many deceased…”
People who acted like the dungeon wasn’t a big deal did sometimes meet awful fates, that was for sure. But we really, really were fine in that regard.
“Please don’t worry—I will be making the appropriate judgments,” I said, placing my hand on my chest.
“Yes, please, Miss Azuzard the dragon.”
Oh, she called me a dragon…
My disguise was a success for the time being.
We went straight down into the Bugabee Underground Ruins.
The WELCOME! written across the entrance struck me as a little iffy…
My first impression upon entering the ruins was that it was incredibly chilly.
Now that I thought about it, I visited a research museum that was in an abandoned mine when I was in Japan; it was midsummer and ninety-five degrees outside, but it was sixty inside.
This place was naturally air-conditioned; maybe the wind was coming from underground.
Back then, it wasn’t just chilly but outright frigid, since I’d only been wearing a T-shirt. This was a lot like that.
Laika was scowling. “A-are all dungeons this cold…? I don’t think this will be very enjoyable…”
“But the chill feels so good! It makes me just wanna punch any wall that comes my way!”
On the flip side, Flatorte was in very high spirits, so the two dragons canceled each other out.
Even though they were similar races, they were comfortable with different situations depending on the environment.
And so when we entered the Bugabee ruins, the first thing we saw was—
—a guide plate like something right out of a museum!
“Oh-ho, they have the old mining tools on display here.” Beelzebub was observing the inconspicuous row of items.
“Wait, this isn’t what dungeons are supposed to be like… Oh, and the map says it’s a museum until the second basement floor…”
The map even showed where the bathrooms were.
I’m sure they meant to be considerate with this design, but I just wasn’t getting the feeling of adventure from it. I came all the way to this fantasy land; I wanted it to act a little more like one.
I’d been intrigued, since I’d never actually done a real walk-through of a dungeon before.
I didn’t mind my slow life in the highlands, but now that I’d gotten all the way up to level 99, maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea to do some more battle-oriented stuff.
And now we’d found ourselves in a museum… I know, she said that the real dungeon started on the eighth floor, so it was pointless to complain.
But this place was a trap we hadn’t expected.
Laika was carefully reading all the displays, which slowed us down even more!
“Hmm, that’s quite useful. So that’s how they dig the mines. This reminds me of the toil of the dwarves.” She’d forgotten how cold it was, and now she was reading over every word and every phrase of every single panel.
She’s too serious.
On the other hand, Flatorte just said “Boooriiing…” and marched on ahead.
This is exactly what happened when we went on a field trip to the museum in middle school! There was a display of Tumulus-era artifacts unearthed in our area, but the kids who weren’t interested just walked right by it.
By the way, I was even worse, pretending to read the information plates but never actually doing it.
Beelzebub was sticking right by my side. She thought I was just skimming over the plaques. She didn’t seem to be having that much fun.
Just before the stairs to the second basement floor, there was a table that said STAMP RALLY. Apparently, if we collected all the stamps down until the twentieth floor, we could receive a prize.
Beelzebub took the stamp sheet and pressed the design right on its spot. Then she sighed.
“I was wondering what manner of dungeon we might find ourselves in, but it’s all out of sorts. I wonder if it’ll be like this until the end… What a strange concept…”
I knew how she felt. I was starting to think this was a failure.
“Well, it might get more difficult after this,” I offered. “Yeah, I really doubt it’s going to be like this the whole way through. They’re just making it so that even lower-level adventurers can enjoy it, too. Yeah, that’s definitely it!”
Flatorte was waiting for us at the end of the second floor. “Let us hurry ahead, Mistress. I’m getting tired of waiting.”
“You don’t have to read any of the explanations or anything, but don’t run too far ahead, okay? We’re still a party.”
Finally, Laika showed up. “Do you think they will be selling a picture record of the displays somewhere?”
“You honor-roll student!”
Of course they wouldn’t be selling that in the dungeon.
From the third floor down, there was still more Bugabee sightseeing information, so I gave that a pass.
After a continuous stream of commentary on special regional products, a folk craft corner, a local festival corner, and other things I didn’t care about, we finally came to the end of the seventh floor. That took forever…
“That took way longer than a normal dungeon would, in a way…” Beelzebub groaned.
She was right—this dungeon sure was eating away at our time, if nothing else…
“But it looks like the dungeon is about to get good. See, there’s a sign.”
Written there was a warning that strong monsters appeared below this point, and that anyone who wasn’t an adventurer should stay out, along with a skull mark.
“I, Flatorte, have been bored to tears without any monsters. I will unleash the full force of my savagery from here on out!” Our dragon sounded less like an adventurer and more like a monster herself. That worried me a little, but I could sympathize with her boredom.
She didn’t even look at a single display…
“Excuse me, but would you mind if I took a little rest here…?” Laika, our other dragon, hesitantly raised her hand.
“Oh? But we haven’t even fought yet…”
“I was reading all the displays so carefully, my feet grew tired…”
“This happens all the time in museums, too!”
Depending on the museum, you could spend a whole hour or two standing and looking at the displays. That was pretty hard on the feet. I knew how that felt.
“If this were a real museum, we’d handle that by taking a rest at the adjoining café, but at the end of the day, we’re still in a dungeon…”
“No, there really is a café right over there.” Beelzebub pointed.
“Seriously?! What kind of dungeon is this?!”
There was indeed a shop right next to the stairs called Café Sunflower.
It looked like they’d gone through all the trouble of bringing lumber down and wedging a building into one of the wider tunnels.
“Hell’s bells… This dungeon would make adventurers cry in a very different sense. At this rate, our adventure may be nothing but some questionable sightseeing in a provincial city…” Beelzebub voiced her apprehensions again.
That suspicion was sneaking up on me, too. “Well, we can go in. One of the first rules of adventuring is to face dungeons in tip-top shape.”
“Do adventurers also look at exhibits, Mistress?” Flatorte was unexpectedly snappy.
“Intelligence is invaluable to skilled adventurers…”
When we entered Café Sunflower, it was surprisingly packed with adventurers.
We managed to secure a four-person table for ourselves and listened in on the other parties’ conversations.
“Man, I dunno. We spent a whole lotta time just looking at the exhibit…”
“Should we leave and come back tomorrow?”
“No, then this whole thing would’ve been pointless. We gotta lift our spirits and head down.”
They were in the same boat we were!
“What if the ‘luxurious prize’ they’re promising isn’t an overpowered sword but some kind of gift set full of specialty products or something?”
“With the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised…”
“I wouldn’t allow that to happen. We paid a lot of money on transportation to get here…”
My own stomach was starting to hurt just from listening to them.
Their village revival was turning out to be a complete failure. I mean, trying to revive the village is all well and good, but they’re calling in adventurers and tricking them to make it happen…
“Lady Azusa, what will you be having?” Laika brought the menu to me.
“I guess I’ll have this specialty, the Bugabee sandwich… Apparently made with locally harvested vegetables and meat from animals caught in the vicinity.”
It said that all the fifteen shops in the area gave this Bugabee sandwich their own flavor and flair.
Since it had the region’s name in the food, I got a strong impression that this wasn’t a local dish with old and strong ties to the area but something they slapped together for tourists. We ordered six.
We ordered more than the number of people at our table because the dragons would each eat two. It would be unthinkable to give a dragon only one sandwich.
The food that arrived looked like a cross between a sandwich and a hamburger. It was tasty enough for that, but it wasn’t enough to erase the glum look from Beelzebub’s face.
“Mmm, my heart has begun to ache,” Beelzebub said quietly with a clouded expression. “I’ve been thinking about what I would do if the village where I’m from wanted to revive itself and reached out to me for help…”
“That sounds like it could happen, since you’re a politician…”
Here in Bugabee, you could clearly see the reality of a declining region, as well as the resistance to the decline and the futility of said resistance.
“There are plenty of abandoned towns and villages in the demon world as well. The world is full of ups and downs. No one can stay prosperous forever. New towns and villages suddenly boom, while others fade away. But we cannot overlook the places that have been left behind…”
Beelzebub cradled her head in her hands.
This was a type of anxiety I had definitely not anticipated when we started out. I just wanted to worry about how hard the dungeon might be.
Beelzebub was first and foremost a politician. In most cases, she couldn’t just say, Hey, the village is declining, so we’re shutting it down, and you all have to move out now.
“There are villages suffering in our area, too. We may grant each one a subsidy so they don’t die out, but they cannot use it for much more than keeping their town hall clean. Having said that, the village will perish entirely if we don’t subsidize it…”
This wasn’t a problem for adventurers anymore…
“This Bugabee sandwich is good, but it’s not very original. ’Tis certainly not good enough to justify someone traveling all the way here just to have one, is it? ’Tis much too weak to be a focal point of sightseeing.”
“When you put it that way, I think I sort of understand.” The problem was now clear. “The region is trying their hand at many things, but no single one has much impact.”
Nobody would come here just to look at the museum exhibits we saw, for example. Even if Bugabee touted the scenic appeal of their location, that was something that all rural places shared.
“I suspect the theme park they once built was just as shallow as all of this,” Beelzebub continued. “Too few guests came for the amount of money they invested into it.”
“I guess it’s depressingly hard to rebuild a village from scratch, huh?”
As Beelzebub and I stewed in worry, Flatorte ordered more Bugabee sandwiches. She seemed to be happy so long as she was eating.
Laika was absorbed in a pamphlet that looked like a sightseeing guidebook. I’d heard that a cultured person could find enjoyment even in the smallest things, so maybe Laika was one of them.
Characters like these two would probably be satisfied with a village like this, but they were in the minority, no two ways about it, and it wasn’t like they came to Bugabee because they wanted to come here specifically.
It was pretty questionable how far they could push through with nothing but the Bugabee Underground Ruins. Nobody but adventurers would come to something like this.
“Well, I suppose it’s all right. The first thing we must do is venture into the dungeon in question and confirm the full picture for ourselves. We may discuss this now, but there are still too many unknowns.”
“Yeah. It’s not like we have a view of the whole thing yet.”
Maybe they had something that would make everyone want to come to Bugabee.
—And then I heard another party start talking again.
“The monsters in the dungeon were pretty lame.”
“Even the treasure chests only had torches and used gear.”
“We were right to pull back at the twentieth floor. We’d make a fool of ourselves going any deeper.”
…That wasn’t very promising, was it?
Still feeling worried, we paid for our food and left the café.
Well then, we were off to the eighth floor. Please let it be a real dungeon…
When we went down to the eighth floor, things started to feel a lot more dungeon-y.
That said, it wasn’t exactly—well, it was nothing like a cave with frightening narrow tunnels where monsters might pop out at us at any second.
The ceiling was high and spacious, and various buildings sat here and there. But they were all rusted away, abandoned, and even the signs were leaning and about to fall over.
“I see… This is what happened to the theme park…”
The word ruin didn’t have to strictly apply to things from over five hundred years ago; if it was a relic of the past, be it three years ago or five hundred, it was a ruin.
So it was fair to call this an underground ruin, too.
“Oh-ho, this is much better than before, isn’t it? Perhaps monsters are lurking nearby.”
“All riiight! I, Flatorte, am going to get things done here! I’ll freeze everything!”
Both Beelzebub and Flatorte were raring to go. It wasn’t a bad thing if killing monsters could relieve their daily stress.
And I was getting a little excited, too.
Now this is what it’s like to be an adventurer! We’re gonna find us some treasure chests!
Our party was probably the strongest of all the groups in this dungeon, so these early floors would be a cinch.
We’d get to floor thirty-four and break the record, and I bet we could do it in no time.
Then a monster finally appeared before me.
And my memorable first encounter was—
An enormous worm.
“Oh, this is a giant worm. It attacks by lashing its body about like a whip. It is one of the most basic monsters that live underground,” Beelzebub politely explained. Exactly what it said on the tin.
I took a step forward. “All right, then! I’m just going to pummel this thing right into the—”
And then, it was at that moment I realized I was missing something.
I didn’t have a sword or a spear. My only choice was to fight with my fists.
I’d fought with physical punches during my battle with Pecora, but I didn’t want to touch a worm with my bare hands.
I have always hated creepy-crawlies. I could touch roly-polies when I was in preschool in my previous life, but once I got to elementary school, that became a thing of the past.
I took a step back.
“What is it you want to do?”
“Beelzebub, I don’t have a sword, so I don’t want to fight it. I’ll pass.”
“Ahhh, you’re the type who hates worms, aren’t you? …As am I.” Beelzebub also recoiled.
Oh right, none of us has any kind of sword anywhere.
“Mistress, I’m not a big fan of these things, either.” Flatorte was retreating, too.
What…? Does no one want to touch this thing? “Oh well. All right, Laika—”
Laika’s face was paler than it had been when we first entered the cold mine shaft.
“Lady Azusa, ghosts and these sort of slimy creatures…are not for me…” Laika hid behind my back.
That’s what she was afraid of?! For a dragon, she sure had a lot of phobias.
“L-look, if you breathe fire on it, it’ll just burst into flames, right? It’s pretty open in here, and I figure maybe using fire is an option…”
“I do not want to stand in front of the worm… And it’s huge… I simply cannot deal with worms like this. I was once chopping some cabbage and found a small green worm inside… My knife had cut it in half…”
Oh, that would traumatize me, too…
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Laika, you’re an embarrassment to the dragon race!” Flatorte taunted from her hiding place behind Beelzebub. Not very convincing.
“I understand, Laika. I’ll try to keep that in mind, so don’t worry. You’re like my little sister, after all.”
“Okay. Thank you, Lady Azusa…”
When the little sister was scared, the big sister had to do something.
“Then how shall we defeat this?” Beelzebub asked.
Yep, that was the question.
“All right, I’ll freeze it with magic. And then—”
“Azusa, there’s a note right there.”
Oh no. What should I do?
The worm was timing its attack.
I wanted it to fear our strength and flee, but it didn’t seem intelligent enough for that. Wishful thinking.
“It’s all right, Beelzebub. I have a plan.”
“And? What might that be?”
“Run.” The simplest methods are often the most effective. “We’re going to hightail it out of here as fast as we can. We’re all powerful enough to easily get away, right?”
“…I see. That’s how we’ll be doing things.”
We spun around on our heels, and—
“Okay, everybody! Run!”
We ran away from the worm.
But this was a dungeon. Another monster was blocking our way—a giant, slimy slug.
“This one is a giant slug. It has poison, so we must be careful. But you have magic that neutralizes poison, don’t you, Azusa?”
It didn’t matter if I did or not. The more pressing issue was that I was not touching that thing.
“Raise your hand if you want to touch it with your bare hands!”
No one did, of course. Even the beefiest of guys would be hesitant.
“Okay, run!”
Again, we booked it out of there.
As we fled from enemies, we learned of a terrifying problem of this dungeon.
We just kept encountering giant worms and slugs! And these, like, huge nasty bugs scuttling everywhere!
“I mean, it makes sense! It’s dark and underground, so it’s no surprise these things are all we’d find!”
As we dashed at full speed to get away from it all, we found the stairs going down along the way and went to the next floor.
The floors beneath also had the terrible trifecta of worms, slugs, and gross bugs. We ran until we found stairs, which we would then go down, and then repeat ad nauseam.
We were going deeper and deeper into the dungeon at high speed.
“Wait! Stop for a second!” Beelzebub yelled. I wondered what it might be, and then I saw the stand with the stamps.
“I’ve gotten my second stamp. The next one is on the sixteenth floor.”
She sure was fussy about this stuff.
We were on the twelfth floor. Let’s keep going! Let’s keep running away!
We were sticking with the choice to keep running from the monsters, using our strength techniques to advance. Given our speed, escaping from the enemies itself wasn’t too draining.
There were other adventuring parties along the way, but we passed right by them and paid them no mind.
“What’s up with that party? Did a strong enemy appear around here?”
“Ugh, there really are just worms!”
“Another freakin’ worm!!!”
The parties cried out as we passed them.
I’m sorry. But the enemies here are all plenty manageable, so please take care of them yourselves.
“Mmm, to think this absurd stratagem would pay off…” Beelzebub had gotten tired of running and was now flying in the air. The worms and slugs weren’t very intimidating like that.
The creepy-crawlies stopped coming out in waves—those enemies were probably only on the higher floors.
Laika, Flatorte, and I were following behind Beelzebub.
“Lady Azusa, do you think it’s all right to constantly show our backs to our enemies like this?” Laika questioned.
Honestly, we could just freeze them with magic. The problem was that the worms mostly waited for their prey in tight corridors, so freezing them would only block the road. That was inconsiderate in such a narrow dungeon.
I didn’t want to fight with worms anyway; I just wanted them out of my face. I wanted to use such a magnificent spell against real monsters that were worth it…
“Do you wanna throw down with gross enemies like that, Laika?”
“…Let us run.”
Even the goodest of Goody Two-shoes hated these nasty little monsters.
“See! I bet there’ll be real monsters if we keep going down! We’ll just take our shortcut until the end!”
“Running this whole time has made it even more fun!” Flatorte was smiling, waving both her arms. A monster would sometimes catch up to her from behind, but she would immediately put distance between them.
“This has become a dungeon marathon. But I guess this is fine.”
We ran through the tunnels without stopping even once.
By the time we reached the fourteenth floor, the whole theme park atmosphere was totally gone, but we kept on running.
At the sixteenth floor, we took a quick rest by the stamp table. Beelzebub’s stamps were starting to add up.
“The next is on the twentieth floor. I wonder what the luxurious prize could be.”
“I wouldn’t expect too much. Sheesh… I didn’t think we’d still be finding worms and slugs…”
They just kept coming; they were the main monsters we fought.
“Worms and slugs multiply of their own accord. This is their fortress now.”
There was a postbox on the stamp rally table that said LET US HEAR YOUR COMMENTS, so I chose to register a complaint: The monsters we encounter here are too creepy.
“But I have never heard of a dungeon that houses the same types of monsters throughout. We should see more unique monsters at some point.”
“Right? I believe you!”
We headed even farther down, and on the seventeenth floor, we finally saw a monster that wasn’t a worm or a slug!
No, it was an enormous centipede.
The way it zigzagged about was viscerally repulsive.
“Just give me an enemy I can hit with my bare hands! Quit it with the crawly stuff!” I could probably defeat it with a single punch, but I didn’t want to punch it!
“This is a giant centipede.”
“Beelzebub, those names are lazy…”
I was starting to get the feeling that you could make anything into a monster if you added “giant” before the name.
“It seems this dungeon was not blessed with quality monsters… Judging by the number of participants, they probably thought adventurers could afford to just pass them by, but everyone pulled back halfway through…”
Even real adventurers would want to defeat more proper types of monsters.
“Well, I guess that means we’ll just keep on running.” We turned our backs to the centipede and hurried away again.
On the twentieth floor, Beelzebub got another stamp.
“I shall have all the stamps after I get the one on the twenty-seventh floor!”
So the last one was on the twenty-seventh floor. Pretty far down.
“And after we go that deep, we should finally, finally, finally see other monsters besides worms and slugs and centipedes,” she said.
With the need to get away from all the creepy-crawlies as our somewhat unorthodox motivation, we pushed even farther underground.
When we came to the twenty-first floor, there were no more elements of the abandoned theme park. It just looked like the remnants of a mine shaft.
Come out, come out, enemies I can hit! Let me fight with you already!
Let me conquer this dungeon for real!
Let me have my dungeon debut!
—A suit of armor with no one inside appeared before us.
“Yesss! I can hit this one!”
My right arm shot out toward it.
I’m gonna kill it! I’m gonna get its magic stone!
But when it got closer—
Some kind of wriggly, sticky, tentacle-looking thing slithered out from between the gaps in the armor.
“There’s something gross living inside!”
“Oh, this is a monster called the armored snail. A cousin of the slug, essentially.”
“Okay, I’m not touching it! And on closer inspection, the armor looks all sticky, too!”
There’s some kind of mucus on it! No way am I punching that!
And once again, we ran away.
We quickly found the stairs leading to the next floor and went down.
“There’s a huge bias in the monsters living in this dungeon, Beelzebub! There’s no variety at all!”
“Now that you mention it, it is quite damp in here… Perhaps there’s a natural spring somewhere.”
“I think we picked the wrong dungeon…”
Maybe we should’ve gone to a forest with stronger monsters or something.
We finally came to the twenty-seventh floor, and Beelzebub got her last stamp. “All right, I should be able to exchange this for something.”
Beelzebub was keeping up her motivation in a different way than I was.
On the other hand, there was another adventuring party that had come this far, and they had just about had enough.
The knight who looked like the party leader talked to us.
“Hey, you guys are looking pretty fresh. We’re bushed, so we’re heading back… Not only are the monsters disgusting, they’ve gotten pretty strong…”
Since we’d been avoiding battle this entire time, we hadn’t really experienced that yet.
“We’re all worn out, too,” I said. We were, from running this whole time. That wasn’t a lie.
“I see. There were other young, powerful adventurers besides you—I wonder which of you will set the next record.”
“Really? Huh,” I responded lightly.
“Yeah. They all had, like, wooden sticks they were using to stab everything. They were talking about how they didn’t want to touch any of them.”
“That’s a smart party…”
Maybe we’d need to bring along some sticks when we came down through the dungeon tomorrow.
But our patented “cut-and-run” stratagem had successfully brought us pretty far down, so maybe we should just keep pushing forward.
It was like we were recording a speedrun in a video game.
“Then let us make it our goal to catch up to the party ahead of us, Lady Azusa.”
Laika found a different goal to put her energy into, but she was still hanging back behind me. It didn’t seem like she wanted to look too much at the monsters here.
I understood why, but a dragon was turning me into her meat shield. What was I to her…?
There had been plenty of information plaques on the earlier floors, but there was almost no information down here. Few had come this far, and the staff at the guild probably hadn’t been able to make it all the way down here, either.
And so, on the twenty-ninth floor, we found this sign:
“It’s only the types of worms that are any different!”
What even is the ecosystem of this dungeon?!
“Azusa, we must accept that this land is what it is. We’ve come this far, so we may as well go all the way down. To be precise, I do not feel like coming back tomorrow.”
“Yeah… We’ll aim to complete this today, then.”
The stairway down to the thirtieth floor was practically just a pit.
Maybe the pit was originally created by a small collapse that someone just made more accessible.
We went down and saw what looked like more underground ruins—but we could tell they were man-made. The walls were painted.
There were plenty of doors as well, and we opened one to find treasure chests that had already been opened and emptied.
“Now this is a dungeon!”
My excitement skyrocketed.
And now, the countdown to breaking the record!
We arrived safely at the thirty-third floor. There was a small sign there that said DEEPEST RECORDED EXPEDITION.
Still avoiding the monsters along the way, we forged ahead to the end.
We would finally be coming to the thirty-fourth floor!
Laika was now carefully mapping out the dungeon to prove that we set a new record.
“At last, we’ve made it to unexplored territory. I’m starting to get a little nervous, too.”
“There must also be good treasure, Mistress!”
This was the most excited Flatorte had been thus far. The time was finally approaching for our reward.
“We’ve been finding a lot of rooms with doors ever since we came to these strange ruins, so I’m sure there’s some unopened treasure chests! Like legendary items or something!”
We were checking the floors much more carefully than we had been before. Plus, Laika was making a map, so we couldn’t just run straight through them.
And then we discovered a tiny room that looked like just the kind of place an item would be hiding.
“Oh, I hope it’s something I can bring back as a souvenir for Falfa and Shalsha~”
However, the chest in the room had already been opened and cleaned out.
“What does this mean? Isn’t this floor supposed to be untouched? Was the sign out-of-date?”
“Perhaps the adventurers who came ahead of us already passed through here. Remember what we heard on the twenty-seventh floor?” Beelzebub pointed out.
Oh, right, the people stabbing the monsters with sticks. “Now that you mention it, we haven’t seen that party at all. I wanna get past them, though.”
“Well! We haven’t fought once, so we are not that tired at all. ’Tis only a matter of time until we find them. We shall rule this dungeon without even having raised our weapons!”
Wait, that last part was a little post hoc; it wasn’t like we didn’t want to fight. But the worms were still attacking periodically, and that didn’t exactly inspire my inner warrior.
We would keep pulling back, although they were rather nimble. They were getting stronger, too.
“Um, was it this way…? If these two connect, then we could give them the slip…”
“Beelzebub, there’s a worm chasing us! Pick it up!”
I wanted to freeze it, but since the passageways were narrow, I didn’t want to use my ice magic until I absolutely had to.
And there was another one coming at us from the opposite direction.
Oh no—we’re trapped!
Another worm was also barreling toward us from behind.
We had our backs to the wall—well, not exactly.
“I have no other choice. I guess I’ll freeze ’em here…”
There were practically no other adventurers on this floor, and we wouldn’t get in trouble if one corridor ended up blocked, probably…
“Everyone, step back, just in case. I mean, don’t step back too far or the worm will get you, but…”
I began murmuring my incantation. But in the moment before I finished casting the spell—
Something thrust straight into the body of the worm in front of me.
A wooden stick had come from my blind spot. The worm quickly perished and became a magic stone.
Oh, I can touch it once it’s a magic stone. I wonder if there was a stick lying around. Or maybe it turned into a magic stone after I froze it…
Wait, wait. There’s something more important to worry about.
It was definitely the party ahead of us that had wooden sticks.
What kind of people were they? Would they seem like veteran explorers? But did veterans explore with wooden sticks?
A person stepped in from my blind spot.
“Oh? If it isn’t Miss Azusa, and Lady Beelzebub, too.”
Fatla the leviathan.
And if Fatla was here, that meant—
“Whoa! I didn’t think we’d see you here! What a coincidence!”
Next appeared Vania, Fatla’s little sister.
“Ugh, now this means we’ll be racing for items… What a waste…”
There was even Fighsly, the fighting slime.
After seeing those three, I could guess who would come next.
“You and I are tied by the thread of fate, Elder Sister.”
The demon king, Pecora, appeared.
The party of demons was making their way through the dungeon!
Of course they would set a new record. They’d never lose to a bunch of worms.
Fighsly blanched when she saw us. “Erm, don’t tell me you guys have been killing the worms and slugs with your bare hands…? That’s so gross…”
“That is not a reaction I’d like to hear from a martial artist! You’ve been punching these worms yourself, haven’t you?”
“What? I kill slimy things like these with elegant pole arts!”
You know, when she said that, I expected a graceful fighting stance with her stick, but she just looks like she’s poking at something gross from as great a distance as possible.
“You can’t call that pole arts!”
And so that was how we grouped up with the demon party deep underground.
“By the way, Pecora, why are you here?”
When I thought of Pecora, I thought of evil tricks, and when I thought of evil tricks, I thought of Pecora. I had to ask. I hated the thought of getting wrapped up in more of that.
“Oh, Elder Sister, I doubt you would understand, but I must always remain in the castle, since I am the demon king. I am but a songbird in a gilded cage. Oh, how unfortunate I am…”
“Er, you’re outside a whole lot, though… But never mind. Continue.”
Behind her, Fatla was looking like, Your Majesty, where on earth is that coming from? so I felt justified in my comment.
“I’m finally out and about, only after much insistence. I must keep control and composure, as I am a ruler. And should a demon king lose control, then the humans might be struck with terror.”
“Oh right, humans are terrified of the demon king… You were acting like an idol, so I totally forgot.”
“But I am a girl of age! I long to go into dungeons and search for treasure like everyone else!”
I wanted to comment, but Pecora looked way too intense.
“I’ve read so many tales of dungeon exploration, ever since I was a little child. I especially loved Dungeons and Dwarves—or Ds and Ds, as we call it!”
“O-okay…”
Pecora spoke with a different light in her eyes than usual. Come to think of it, she did strike me as a bookworm. It was probably true that she wasn’t as free to walk around outside as she would have liked, so she would have things in her room like books that could keep her entertained.
“Did you know this, Elder Sister? The four hours it takes to read about the characters going through one floor of the dungeon in Ds and Ds goes by in a flash!”
“That’s massive!”
That was way more time than actually going through a dungeon in real life.
“But you never get bored of the fascinating twists and turns when you read it. The part where the adventuring companions are attacked by a giant caterpillar and die one after the other is such a masterpiece.”
“Wait, the good guys die…?”
“Yes. The weak adventurers die relatively quickly in Ds and Ds. I appreciate the realism. I just end up cheering for the monsters.”
That sounded like a pretty complicated way of enjoying it…
“Long ago, I used to fall asleep fantasizing about relentlessly attacking adventurers in dungeons.” Pecora hugged an imaginary book to her chest.
A dungeon with the demon king waiting inside would be the hardest of hard modes.
“But of course, that dream could never come true, so I’ve simply continued my work as the demon king. I wonder if anyone would take my place?”
“Not allowed,” Fatla calmly replied from behind us. I’d be willing to bet she was the most earnest girl of everyone I knew.
“Then I heard about these Bugabee Underground Ruins, and I decided to say yes! I would participate and complete the dungeon, just like an adventurer.”
“That’s almost exactly the same idea I had…!”
I wanted to do something that adventurers would do. That was one of the dreams of a fantasy world.
“Oh, you, too, Elder Sister? Wow! Sisters really do think alike!”
Pecora took my hand and swung it around. I thought our personalities were rather different, but I was starting to recognize her as my little sister.
“And since it required a group of four to join, we were roped in!”
“We are treating it as a business trip.”
The two leviathan sisters answered.
“I gladly came along, since travel allowance was included. That’s why I’m working hard on all the qualities of a fighter: heart, technique, physique, and money.”
“Fighsly? I think you added an extra one…”
That being said, I didn’t think having one fighter in the party would balance it out very well. They had two leviathans with them, which made party balance even worse.
Wait, hold on a second…
“How did you guys fill out your entry sheet thing anyway? The one you write your job on.”
Even if they were okay with demons coming along, people would panic if she wrote “demon king” in the occupation column. Actually, they’d probably just think she was making a joke.
“Then I shall present it to you. Our extra copy should be here somewhere…” Fatla dug around for it, then showed us their entry sheet.
“You’re all civil servants?!”
“Since we sisters are government officials, we are civil servants. And since Her Majesty’s general duties are public service, I came to the conclusion that there would be no problem in calling her a civil servant.”
Well, then. They weren’t lying, after all.
This meant the dungeon was going to be conquered by parties full of civil servants and the unemployed, of all things. Was that okay?
“If I treat it like work, then I can enjoy my time here in the dungeon without care as well! Our party lineup breaks no rules, either, so it’s quite comfortable!”
Pecora was in truly high spirits, and her demon-like tail slowly swayed back and forth with excitement.
“However… If there has been any disappointment so far…” She turned around.
There was a giant worm slowly approaching us, one that was probably very strong.
She poked it with her stick, killing it easily, and it turned into a magic stone.
“This dungeon is too full of slimy things… I would’ve gotten myself a sword if I had known it would be like this…”
“Indeed—we underestimated the necessity of weapons and the like. We failed this time.” Fatla recognized their mistake, her expression unchanging.
I guess that meant they’d run into a basic but major issue in enemies that were just uncomfortable to fight.
“Well, I don’t think it’s a problem. We can stab them with wooden sticks anyway! We can kill any enemies that come up to you if you want~” Vania said with the same eagerness as offering to carry our bags.
“Would you? We’ve been so frazzled running away from worms this entire time.”
Then I noticed a problem.
I came all the way to this dungeon, and now I would end up clearing it without defeating a single enemy… I wouldn’t be accomplishing my original goal at all…
I decided that next time, I would check ahead to see if the dungeon was home to cuter monsters.
But if they’re cute, they’ll be harder to kill, so maybe I’ll look for a dungeon with monsters that are as clean as they are mean…
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